Senators are plotting their exit for the fall midterm campaign season, but their work on Capitol Hill isn’t quite finished yet.
The first vote of what’s expected to be the Senate’s final workweek before the elections will be Monday on passage of a bipartisan bill to set rules of the road for name, image and likeness concerns in college sports. It appears likely to be the last major piece of legislation to advance before Election Day.
“The NIL era is here,” Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a floor speech last week. The bill “embraces this new reality by codifying and protecting the rights of student athletes to earn money from their name, image, and likeness, and establishing the rules necessary to end the chaos. But a system that protects student athletes’ ability to earn NIL also needs rules,” he said.
Cruz has led the bill along with his committee’s ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
Other legislative business
Also on the agenda this week is a Republican-favored bill intended to have the operators of large data centers pay for needed electric grid upgrades. Senate Democrats appear unlikely to go along with it. A Democratic leadership aide said over the weekend that the bill doesn’t go far enough because it would be voluntary.
“As Republicans determine their next steps on the floor, Senate Democrats remain focused on a stronger standard: if Big Tech creates the cost, Big Tech should have to pay it,” the aide said.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 417-3 before departing for its extended pre-election recess. But Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., objected to calling up and clearing the measure in the Senate.
Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, is leading the Senate effort, and while he’s facing a challenging reelection campaign against Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown, there’s been plenty of allegations of politicking.
Another unresolved issue is a set of Congressional Review Act resolutions seeking to nullify California emission waivers relating to the state’s standards for ships that are docked at harbors and certain harbor craft, such as pilot boats. The waivers, issued by the EPA during the Biden administration, allow California to set stricter emissions standards than elsewhere in the country.
Republicans have moved the disapproval resolutions even though California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, is suing to challenge whether Congress can use the CRA on these waivers.
Valid resolutions under the CRA may be considered under an expedited process in the Senate requiring just a simple majority vote for passage.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Sunday pressed the Senate to act. “Senate Republicans could blow a chance to repeal climate coercion,” read a headline on that editorial.
Senators have other items on their wish list for this last week as well, including a number of President Donald Trump’s nominations and even possible legislation that would seek to prevent the Trump administration from demolishing the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts without congressional approval.
Committees will seek to finish up their pre-election work as well.
Former special counsel John L. “Jack” Smith, who supervised two criminal cases against Trump under the Biden administration, is scheduled to testify Tuesday morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Also among the headline hearings is a Wednesday afternoon Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on efforts to protect the United States from potential attacks by rogue artificial intelligence.
David Jordan and Kelly Livingston contributed to this report.
